Many types of neural function diagnostic tools exist at present. The CAT, PET (position emission test) and MRI (magnetic resonance imagery) all serve useful purposes as tools for measuring locations of impairment known to exist through gross symptomology. For example, MRI is used to access damage and reconstruct the area associated with a trauma. CAT and PET scans both reconstruct affected areas associated with a functional impairment. However, none of these devices are capable of doing real-time processing and imaging of actual processing of stimuli response information and related electrical phenomena. MRI, CAT and PET scans are tools designed to investigate static phenomena by means of off-line procedures. All three of these examination methods serve as different means of trying to locate and identify areas of concern. However, none of these means diagnoses the flow of activity or level of functional impairment through these areas as defined by normal electrical activity.
An increasing awareness has grown in the medical field about the need to be able to access not only static responses but also dynamic responses to actions and stimuli. Evaluation of dynamic responses can only be achieved with the ability to do real time diagnostic and real time imagery of electrophysiological events. Also, the ability to do real time mapping of the brain's electrical response will allow the medical field to observe dynamic events in both neurophysiological and neuroanatomical realms in real time. This ability will allow both clinicians and researchers to have a tool to examine and diagnose those phenomena which occur between the onset of incident or trauma and that time when the patient would normally have a more traditional examination of the insult. The present invention will focus on the process underlying the infliction, as well as show those areas affected by the trauma in a dynamic three-dimensional format.